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The innovations of Internet Explorer

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Re: The innovations of Internet Explorer

#71

Post by yuhong »

huxley wrote: post #35
wrath wrote: post #4

Say what you want about Microsoft and IE (I'm expecting Microsoft to be bashed as usual in this thread), but for those of us who were developing for the web in the early 2000s IE was way richer in features that any other browser. The event model and the styling capabilities were better and best of all MSDN actually had documentation. There's a reason why IE6 was adopted so much. It "was" good. Others with better idea…

I'd been developing for the web for almost 6 years and making my living on the web for almost 4 years when IE6 came out (August 27, 2001) and I certainly wasn't a pioneer. It was very primitive compared to now, but standards-based development was important to a lot of us waaaaaaaay before IE6 came out. Things had been improving at a decent if not exceptional pace back in the late 1990s. IE6 was important but only as…

The WaSP was the one who was responsible for petitioning Netscape to cancel Mariner, leaving Netscape with nothing to compete with IE5.

Re: The innovations of Internet Explorer

#72

Post by mrpsbrk »

wrath wrote: post #4

Say what you want about Microsoft and IE (I'm expecting Microsoft to be bashed as usual in this thread), but for those of us who were developing for the web in the early 2000s IE was way richer in features that any other browser. The event model and the styling capabilities were better and best of all MSDN actually had documentation. There's a reason why IE6 was adopted so much. It "was" good. Others with better idea…

Having been involved in something like web development around 99-2001, then living under a rock for some years, then coming back around the time mozilla "phoenix" thing started rolling, i remember how odd it sounded that people would hate IE and love the others, it was exactly the opposite of my expectations...

Re: The innovations of Internet Explorer

#73

Post by est »

kakuri wrote: post #44

While praising IE, let us not forget that MS only innovated enough to displace other web browsers, leveraging its Windows near-monopoly to saturate the market with IE. Dominance achieved, competitors obliterated, MS was content to let the world live with IE6 for eternity, and only with the rise of Firefox and Webkit-based browsers did MS finally deign to do something (althought not much) for the web with IE9.

IE had its own innovations like VRML, dHTML+TIME, behaviors, HTML Components. Which could not be found else where.

Guess what, IE6 even supports DirectX called DirectAnimation. And MIDI, vector graphics, etc. IE is far more feature rich than any other remote HTML displayers.

Re: The innovations of Internet Explorer

#74

Post by bpatrianakos »

This is all true and Microsoft deserves credit where credit is due but here's the thing: just because they spurred innovation long ago doesn't mean they deserve a pass now. That's how this article kind of comes off. Like we should lay off and be thankful for what we have. And we should. But the web is all about innovation and finding better, faster, smarter ways to do things. Your girlfriend doesn't forgive you instantly now when you cheat because you were incredibly loyal in the past. Your boss shouldn't pay you when you don't show up and don't call for work because you had a perfect attendance record in the past. The fact is, IE went to hell and they deserve our scorn. If and when IE10 really does deliver on its promises them we can call be happy with them and start the process of forgiving and forgetting. Though I doubt version 10 will live up to the hype I'll be happy to give them all the praise in the world if they at least catch up to where Firefox and Safari are now. I wish they'd get on Chrome's level but that's a lot to ask right now. What the article says about IE is true but now it's 2012 and what they did in 1999-2001 just isn't enough to give them a pass.

I'd also add that though IE did innovate like crazy in their heyday, if they didn't someone else would have.

Re: The innovations of Internet Explorer

#75

Post by yuhong »

huxley wrote: post #39
huxley wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd been developing for the web for almost 6 years and making my living on the web for almost 4 years when IE6 came out (August 27, 2001) and I certainly wasn't a pioneer. It was very primitive compared to now, but standards-based development was important to a lot of us waaaaaaaay before IE6 came out. Things had been improving at a decent if not exceptional pace back in the late 1990s. IE6 was important but only as…

Two additional bits of data in my quest to prove IE6 (released August 2001) wasn't what started it all and disprove the idea that there weren't any standards back then. From way back in Feb 16, 2001: From Table Hacks to CSS Layout: A Web Designer’s Journey http://www.alistapart.com/articles/journey/ And from that same day, long before the "Internet Explorer 6 Countdown" WaSP had the "Browser Upgrade Initiative": http…

This reminds me that the use of the word "standard-compliance" as a synonym for boat anchor has irritated me for a while now.

Re: The innovations of Internet Explorer

#76

Post by InclinedPlane »

aboodman wrote: post #69
wrath wrote: post #4

Say what you want about Microsoft and IE (I'm expecting Microsoft to be bashed as usual in this thread), but for those of us who were developing for the web in the early 2000s IE was way richer in features that any other browser. The event model and the styling capabilities were better and best of all MSDN actually had documentation. There's a reason why IE6 was adopted so much. It "was" good. Others with better idea…

IE6 was actually just an incremental improvement on IE5 and IE4 before it. IE4 was the really important leap. Story time: IE3 and NN3 both had small amounts of programmability via JavaScript - you could change the src of an image, you could inspect and modify form values, you could navigate the page, or completely clear its contents and rewrite it as a string. Oh, and also alert(), confirm(), and prompt(). IE4 and NN…

Yup. You toss it off as a short comment, but the stability and performance aspects of IE4 and Netscape 4 shouldn't be ignored. Netscape was super-crashy, and bloated, and slow, and development pace had slowed to a crawl. This was the age of Netscape Communicator suite version 4.2b preview release candidate 3 Gold (you think I'm kidding but this is hardly an embellishment of the reality). IE4 was solid, less bloated, and faster. And better maintained.

Microsoft abused its monopolies in various ways, that's for sure, but it won the browser war by hitting Netscape when stumbled right where it hurt the most, with a higher quality competing product.

Re: The innovations of Internet Explorer

#77

Post by InclinedPlane »

macspoofing wrote: post #36
ZoFreX wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think it's important to point out to people that perhaps weren't active in web development back then that IE6 was a huge leap forward, and at the time was a great browser. The only reason we hate it now is because it stuck around too long, and arguably that isn't even Microsoft's fault.

>and arguably that isn't even Microsoft's fault. Yes it is. Microsoft disbanded the ie team after the release of ie6. This coupled with Longhorn/Vista's delays entrenched Windows XP and by extension ie6 stronger than it otherwise would have.

MS disbanded the IE dev team for one reason: fear. The mostly unwarranted legal harassment that MS faced for defeating Netscape fare and square with a superior product (which largely served as a proxy for punishing MS for other, admittedly bad, behavior) caused them a lot of grief. So they gave up, and as a result we were saddled with a lack of innovation in web browsers for about a decade.
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